Secrets of the City

The PiPress goes Denny Hecker crazy with their multi-part report The Rise and Fall of Denny Hecker. The hight point, as David Brauer points out? The insanely complicated interactive graphic defining the octopus arms of Hecker’s business dealings.

Denny Hecker has lost his house. From KARE11: A U.S bankruptcy judge has ruled that former automobile mogul Denny Hecker can’t claim his multimillion-dollar Crosslake property as his homestead.

More from the Pioneer Press: Under bankruptcy law, an individual can exempt a personal residence, up to $330,000 in value, from becoming part of the estate that is divvied up to pay creditors. However, this case was complicated by the fact that the property Hecker tried to claim is owned by a company.

One of the strange qualities of Denny Hecker’s bankruptcy is that we get to peek in on some of his spending habits. The PiPress gives a partial inventory: A pair of $30,000 guard dogs. A $60,000 fur coat. Gifts of jewelry worth $47,000. These were not, by the way, mentioned in Hecker’s bankruptcy filing, which listed listing $18.5 million in assets and $767 million in liabilities; the jewelry was apparently given as gifts (although Hecker couldn’t remember to whom), the guard dogs were apparently family pets, and therefore, for some reason, not assets. DeRusha was puzzled enough to ask why dogs might cost that much, while Bizjournal lists Hecker’s finances. It’s also possible to find the various political donations Hecker made over the years, which went to both Democratic and Republican candidates. Gievn enough time, I suspect I could find a Web page that opens his wallet and displays the contents. Although this sort of information has always been public, it’s never been easier to access it, and to what end? Are you in favor of this sort of information-driven society, or is it too much?

TC Sidewalks looks into the precipitous decline of one of Minnesota’s best-known salesmen: The rise and fall of Hecker reminds me about how central suburban greenfield development, home construction, and auto sales have become to the US economy. It’s depressing to think that so much of the US GDP depends on the mindless-construction of planned obsolescence homes in empty farmland, and selling new homeowners the broken dream of remote country living. Hecker honed this to a fine art, attaching his name to a package of car loans, home loans, and easy financing. It turns out, it was all a sham. Now he’s up to his neck in law suits, while the US auto companies, parts suppliers, mortgage brokers, investment banks, and construction firms go belly up one by one.

“The toxicology report listed the drugs as: hydrocodone, hydromorphone, morphine, amphetamine, alprazolam (also known under the trade name Xanax) and zolpidem … The drugs are painkillers, a stimulant and an anti-anxiety medication. ” Guess who? Denny Hecker

Can you blame him, nobody walks? Especially not when they’re that high. Since Denny couldn’t be reached for comment let’s pretend you’re Denny and give me your most outrageous comment. I buy the winner a beer.

After crashing his car into a utility pole Wednesday night in Plymouth, Denny Hecker is in the hospital. With what seems like at least a partial meltdown of his automotive empire, was Hecker trying to end it all or was it just slippery conditions that propeled his car off the highway?